Yes, this space and time is as liminal as they come. I seem to specialize in such moments, when one foot is on one side of the gate and one on the other. It's an awkward place, but it's my nearly constant reality so I've gotten used to it.
So these times seem to nurture calm (see last blog), clarity and even an iota of courage. And today seems to be a good day to throw out a few more thoughts about money, ones that my readers may or may not thank me for. But when you have just moved or are moving, you are more aware than ever of what you have or don't have, financially, whether you can "afford" what you want to do or where you want to be, and, in my case, you simply come face to face with your deepest truths, yet again.
Despite the fact that I have almost the perfect storm for not succeeding financially (much of which I have already spoken of, so I won't here), I've been aware for a long time that the truth for me went much deeper than clichés about starving artists or limiting beliefs. I haven't really had the nerve to explore it, but here goes. The core of my issue is that I simply do not understand why humans use money in the first place.
I often try to go back in my mind to that first person who used money. Of course, I don't know who it was. But let's say it was an early farmer who had a bumper crop of corn. Perhaps his neighbor had had setbacks and needed corn, so the farmer said, "Here, take a pile of corn and give me something in return, or give me an IOU. When you have a surplus, you can give me crops that I need." From our modern perspective, this all seems quite logical, and we can see the progression from the ancient beginnings of trade to our modern complexities. Yet in that simple exchange, I sense fear, fear of the future, the farmer's fear that the future would not be so bright (and in farming that is not an unfounded fear).
But I have thought a lot about money, and I just cannot seem to get away from the sense that its use is essentially a "fear" function. I am not talking specifically about the world's two main economic systems here. But just the basic thought that money, or any kind of barter or trade, is necessary at all doesn't seem to be love-based. I don't get breaking everything up into units of worth and units of payment. I see all my gifts as coming from the heart of the divine, so I just don't understand thinking of them as "mine" and then charging money for them. I don't understand anyone looking at the natural resources of mother earth as "theirs" and charging money for them. In a post-dualistic worldview, if everything is part of one stream, the stream of love, then all we need to do is give freely, and what we need will come freely. And if it doesn't come freely, maybe we don't need it.
I haven't seen others talking about this yet, although I am sure it's out there, like everything else. I'm sure now that I've started to talk about it, I won't stop. But part of it is that I need to shout-out to all the artists, creative people, mystics, and all those currently in "poverty" for any reason whatsoever. It may be that the energy of trying to work in a fear-based system has worn us out. It may be that many of us are trying in our own way to do something right, to live in alignment with fearlessness and love. On the surface, our lives may look unsuccessful, but perhaps we are in the vanguard. The key may not be to "help" us or "fix" us, but to listen to us and learn from us.
